Well, if you were wondering where the updates went – I was hibernating. The groundhog was EXTREMELY mistaken this year and we have spent the last month since I last updated buried in snow. Literally.

Here’s a nice spring (or winter?!) day.

We went up to Maple Lake for Easter. They had just as much snow as we did. On EASTER. Booooooooo

We did the best we could to pretend it wasn’t out there. Here is Auntie Lulu teaching the little ladies some skating tricks. She also taught me crossovers. We’ll be starting all over again next fall. ; )

Wouldn’t be a family get together without tons of food and some wine!

Here is Easter morning!

Auntie Kelli and her best friends!

The older 3 musketeers.

The best friends.

The best friends + an Ella.

The laaaaaadies. Ryan’s finger was over the flash so thats why its all wonky.

And I blame the snow and its extreme brightness for ruining all 50 of the pictures Lulu took of us here. They all stunk.

Here are the kids dressed in their Easter best or um, best snow gear for the Annual Easter Egg Hunt!

This is definitely a first – searching for eggs in the snow fort.

No idea what was happening here. Some sort of trickery I’m sure.

Hobey, the Easter bunny dog.

This picture makes me laugh. Poor little Addi in the snowbank!

We got home to find that a lot of our snow had melted! We were so delighted!!!

The snowman had become a blob! His end was near!

Avery broke out her summer gear in anticipation (pants were an afterthought).

We celebrated with walks to the bridge to monitor the wildlife and ice receding situations.

Then THIS happened. BOOOOOOOOOOO. This deck was free of ALL snow before that.

I believe it was an 8 incher storm. Its hard to keep track actually.

Then we thought it was safe to go back out. So did the trumpeter swans who had returned.

Excuse the photo barrage from this storm. Everything was so pretty and it was almost unreal that it had happened again. We got over 20 inches in a week’s time. At the END of April. School even got cancelled and from what I’ve been told – Brainerd RARELY cancels school.

He was crossing his fingers that this was the last time he’d have to snow blow. So far, so good. Knock on wood.

Last week, Dylan was eating cereal when all of a sudden he exclaimed that he had a loose tooth. He’s said this MANY times so we were like yeah, whatever. But this time it was true. He finally had a loose one! (right above my finger)

Couldn’t believe it!

Then, on April 25th at 11:30 am – he lost his tooth on the playground at school. He lost it while jumping off a snowbank (he re-inacted it for us as we walked out of school) and luckily it stayed in his mouth so he didn’t lose it in the snow. So the tooth fairy came and he got a 2 dollar bill. He was pretty excited.

And if you can believe it – exactly one week after school was cancelled cuz of the 10+ inches – it was hot and sunny out. Yes, I’m aware of how weird this looks. There is snow but she is in shorts and a tshirt. Yes, I know. But the snow has to melt somehow right?! And melting it all in 2-3 days with 70+ degree weather is the way to go! Quick and painless!

Avery made snow castles!

Her sandbox was still covered, so she did the next best thing!

We had fun joking around with the snow background. It really WAS hot out. I’m serious. My parents were here and my mom and I were putting snow on ourselves to cool off. She at one point plopped a big snowball on her head to let it melt gradually onto her. Snow actually worked out to our advantage!

We had to walk (ok, we ran thru the snow hootin and hollerin cuz of how cold the snow was!) down to the water for my yearly dancer’s pose picture with the ice. Has to be done every year!

Avery prefers easier poses.

She didn’t seem to mind the cold snow and water on her feet. She cray cray.

Then we came up with the genius idea to make margaritas with the snow! When April gives you snow, you make margaritas!

The actually ended up being more like snow cones. So we switched to beer. Oh well!

Of course we walked to the bridge a lot. This is the best time of the year to see wildlife. When the ice isn’t off the lake yet, the birds and ducks all flock to the one area that DOES have open water – which happens to be right by our house.

Avery got fancy for the occasion.

Here are the snow melting time lapse photos. This was 7am-ish and 7pm-ish.

Here is the Blob – renamed Jabba the Hut. Goodbye Jabba!!!!

And finally, here is more of the wildlife this morning. I screwed up and didn’t bring my camera last night. Of course, there was the world’s largest beaver eating a fish. Several pairs of loons. A bald eagle watching them all from a tree. And lots of ducks. It was a gorgeous night. But there was more of the same this morning but not quite as warm today. Here’s one of the eagles on the ice looking for easy targets.

And here are our loons! 🙂 So happy they are back!

Nature boy and nature girl collecting sticks. Yesterday it was rocks. Which luckily, were allowed to be sent home with grandma and grandpa. Sticks are still here. Bummmmmer.

Well, we apparently have a last minute showing today, so I have to hit post and then hit the ground running!!!!